PUT YOUR 

HOUSE IN ORDER

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 15th Friday in Ordinary Time is, “Put Your House in Order.”

That’s a comment in today’s first reading.

Listen to it in context:

“When Hezekiah was mortally ill,
the prophet Isaiah,

son of Amoz, came and said to him:
‘Thus says the LORD:

Put your house in order,
for you are about to die;

you shall not recover.’” [Isaiah 38:1b]

That is scary: “Put your house in order….” 

Is that an internal order to all of us? I don’t know about you, but I think of that whenever they knock me out for a colonoscopy or what have you. Will I wake up? I also think of that when I’m going on vacation or on a trip. I look at my room and say, “Oh my God. I gotta clean this mess - because if I die, someone is going to be cursing the dead - me -  when they have to clean this up - all this clutter - all these books - all these papers  - all these magazines.”

Six of us were in a house over on the eastern shore yesterday evening - for crabs. Even though I’m very messy, hammering crabs and breaking them up on a table is too messy for me.  I was offered a burger and took the deal. The owner of the house was neat. Very neat. Very, very, very neat.  Being a slob, I got nervous. Everything in the house and outside the house was neat, perfect, exact and sparse.   

The owner said, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”

Well, when I read today’s first reading, that message of putting your house in order, made me laugh. I started to wonder, if a very, very, very, very neat person would miss hearing that text in the first place?

Or is it true, that even the neatest person in the world has a closet or a cellar or a bottom drawer that is a mess?

Then there are the inner messes.

SURPRISE

When Hezekiah hears the message from Isaiah that he’s about to die, he  turns to the wall. H starts to pray.  He starts to weep bitterly.

I was a funeral of an 17 year old last Monday  - Sarah McMahon - and at the funeral of Lillian Dabney - 94 - this morning and will be at the funeral of Kellie Thompson Shiley - age 31 this coming Monday. So the question of death hits me - not just from these readings - not just when going on trips - but also from funerals - and also from going  by cemeteries or hearing from TV or the paper of a famous person passing away.

When am I going to get my house in order? There are boxes to empty, papers to sort and toss, things to line up.

Surprise, Hezekiah gets 15 more years to live.

Did he fall back into his old patterns of procrastination or what have you - if that was bent? I don’t know.

A Bible text is helpful, if gets me to be specific about my life and my stuff.  That’s always the question.

CONCLUSION

So today I won' turn to a wall - but to myself - to my laziness - to my lack of lists that work - to my need to toss and sort and clean - to catch up on unanswered letters and Christmas cards or what have you.

Hezekiah’s initial response to pray and to cry are good. However, those are easy, compared to the work of putting things in order. I guess the very simple solution is what Nike keeps advertising: “Just do it!”